Surreal in Xilitla

Leaving the bus in Xilitla, we were drenched in instant sweat - the kind where you can feel the drops rolling down your body. It brought to mind a humid New Orleans in August, and was a real switch after a month and a half in the desert. The greenery around town was incredibly lush, with jungle surrounding the town and the concrete crumbling from the moss and ferns covering the buildings. The hour running around finding a hotel was oppressive, but in the Mercado we found Casa Maria for 140 pesos a night (with tv, shower and intermittent wifi).

Xilitla apparently has about 8000 people, but after San Joaquin seemed a bustling metropolis. The central plaza is always busy and especially in the evenings, and food stalls crowd the streets.

There are two main things to see in Xilitla. One is the Cave of the Parrots (20 pesos, very hard to find), where hundreds of parakeets (not parrots, actually) gather to nest each sunset. We made the hike, but I think arrived too late; we never saw more than half a dozen or so flying arounjd at once, although you could definitely hear more. The cave itself is more of an amphitheater carved into the side of a cliff, and might have been fun to climb around in if it hadn't been getting dark.

The other, more notable thing to see is Las Pozas (50 pesos, totally worth it). Created by an eccentric English millionaire (which you find as you travel are apparently not as rare as one would think) with a passion for surrealist art, it is a series of paths and concrete structures hidden into the jungle. There is also a stream with two waterfalls that forms a series of pools you can splash around in. With stairways that lead up to nothing, paths that lead into concrete walls, and the jungle crawling over every surface, it's as if Lewis Carol had asked M.C. Escher to help design Wonderland.

 

Here is a wonderful YouTube clip we found with the announcer giving his wonderfully English perspective on Las Pozas.

We spent the first couple hours climbing around in the structures, which was entirely more terrifying than it should have been. In some sort of sick surrealist joke, almost all the stairways running up to five stories tall had holes made into them where you could have installed a hand railing, but then didn't install said railing. I'm not usually that afraid of heights, but walking out onto some of the small concrete paths between structures was seriously nerve-wracking.

After that, I really enjoyed playing in the pools while Petra mostly sat on the bank and worried about me as the waterfalls tossed me around.

But the water was wonderfully refreshing and there were lots more ruins to explore both around the stream and just away. Then we had a nice walk back to town through the encroaching landscape in the cool evening air.